Letter to the Editor: Erie Residents Deserve Transparency

Editor’s note: This letter was sent to Yellow Scene Magazine. As with all Letters to the Editor, the views expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the publication. We value providing space for community voices. The following letter was also submitted to the Boulder Daily Camera. The author reached out to Yellow Scene with the message below before sending their letter.

Very much appreciate the journalism you do over there to keep Erie informed. […] Erie council has silently been using executive sessions to work to accept a bid for the town’s mineral rights without making the voters aware. A couple of residents spoke about this at the last city council meeting this week after doing some digging. We shouldn’t have to dig this hard for information.

What would you do if decisions that could affect your home’s value, your neighborhood, and millions of public dollars were being made behind closed doors?

Erie residents may soon face exactly that situation.

The Town of Erie recently received a bid for mineral rights that could allow expanded gas drilling on town property. Instead of informing residents and opening a public discussion, the town quietly hired a consultant to help pursue the bid. That consultant is a former executive of the very company—Civitas—making the offer.

The consultant reportedly helped write his own contract and was hired without the town seeking competing bids from other firms. Even more concerning, the town has already committed up to $4.5 million to this consultant before residents have even seen a final proposal.

Much of this work is occurring in executive session, where the public cannot attend. Residents are being told they won’t see the details until the town already has a finalized bid in hand—after the most important decisions may already have been made.

The stakes are significant.

Expanded fracking near residential areas can affect property values and the long-term character of our community. Under Colorado’s pooling laws, homeowners may have little say if drilling occurs beneath their property.

Erie residents deserve transparency before millions of public dollars are spent and irreversible decisions about our community’s mineral rights are made.
A decision with consequences this significant deserves an open, competitive, and transparent process—not one conducted largely out of public view.
This process should be paused and brought out into the open

Tonia Sharp, Erie, CO